Once Bitten_Wolves of Hemlock Hollow

by Heather McCorkle

  She shrugged. “It was what it was. I wish I had trusted that he was the man I had always thought he was, and not the one the police made him out to be.”

  I glanced around us, eyes going from the parking lot to the road, then back to her. No one was around. I did not want to leave her here alone, but I could not expect her to go inside with me either.

  “I’ll be fine here. If anyone at all pulls into the parking lot I’ll come inside,” she said.

  “If you even smell someone strange—”

  She stopped my words with a quick kiss. “I’ll come right in.”

  I drew in a long breath, considering my words carefully. “I know you can handle yourself, it is not that. Even with Lars and the others out looking for who did this, I still worry. The truck bombing makes me worry about how far they are willing to go.”

  “Not as far as I’m willing to go to stay by your side,” she said.

  The level of conviction in her words thrilled me for more than one reason and made me smile. Nodding, I rose from the car and stared at her a moment before leaving. Those brown eyes, so full of confidence, stared at me from behind a half curtain of her ebony hair. If it came to a fight she would be in trouble. A few weeks of training to fight was not enough for someone who had no natural inclination or desire to do so. I hated the way my chest tightened at the thought of anything happening to her. A bad feeling tried to tug at me, but I wrote it off as an overprotective instinct resulting from having mated with her so recently. I would only be gone a few minutes.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sonya

  The quick, aggressive stride he took to the police station almost made me feel sorry for the officer who would have to take his statement. Part of me wanted to follow him while another cringed at the thought of walking through those doors. Memories of seeing my dad in a sterile visiting room with tables and attached stools that were bolted to the concrete floor quickly made me look away. Even if I were being chased I wasn’t sure I could go in there. It wasn’t the same as a prison, I knew, but it was associated closely enough to bring panic to the surface.

  More to look away from the station than out of any real suspicion, I checked the parking lot and the street behind me. Nothing, not even traffic. It hit me that someone might not approach by car, but by foot. Birds sang from within the trees that lined the sidewalk and framed a green space that went around the side of the building. I gravitated toward it to get away from some of the city smells. Sunlight found its way through the yellow and green leaves of the many trees to dapple the sidewalk. As soon as I could, I stepped from the concrete onto the soft cushion of shortly trimmed green grass. The energy of living things worked like an instant balm on my nerves. While the feeling was still a little weird, I would take what I could get right now.

  The sidewalk kept going, turning into a wider pathway that cut between the greenspace on the side of the police station and a grouping of buildings. From one of those buildings wafted the aroma of baking dough, cheese, and spices. It didn’t quite drown out the asphalt and exhaust scents, but it helped. The cut grass beneath my feet and swaying leaves overhead helped far more. I leaned against the trunk of a small maple to wait. More to keep Ty’s scent close than out of any need to block out the breeze, I pulled his brown flannel close, burying my nose in the collar.

  Minutes ticked by and though a bit of traffic moved along the road, no one pulled in to either the police station or the brick buildings next door. Something unsettling stirred deep in my stomach, awakening both urgency and what I could only associate with a motherly type of instinct. One of my own was close, someone newly bitten. The certainty with which I knew that bugged me. I raised my nose into the breeze and breathed deep. A very slight musk mingled with an aloe-scented soap drifted to me. Along with it came a sniffling sound from around the corner. On a picnic table beneath two pine trees hunched a figure in a gray hoodie. From this distance I couldn’t make out any more. But I knew all I needed to know. They were a new varúlfur and they might need help. I had to do what I could, however little it might be.

  Maybe Candice had run away from Hemlock Hollow. I think she would have called me, but I couldn’t be sure. If it was Candice, I had to talk to her. The full moon was tomorrow and my instincts told me she shouldn’t face it alone. Hell, even if it wasn’t her, I had to talk to this person. I glanced back at the police station. This constituted as smelling someone strange, but not someone Ty had been worried about. The instinct deep inside pulled harder at me until I finally took a step in the person’s direction. With a great amount of effort, I stilled my feet and concentrated on the reason for the instinct. Letting instincts of any kind control me weren’t an option anymore.

  Sympathy weighed heavy in me, along with a desire to make sure no one went through the verða alone, or with someone who had forced it on them. All in all, the reasons behind the instinct didn’t seem like anything bad, certainly not anything to fight against. As a precaution, I checked the air once more. When I didn’t smell anyone else besides the person on the bench, I started in their direction. They didn’t look up until I was almost next to the bench.

  The wide, bloodshot eyes of a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty shot up to me. Shine that was part tears and part predator in transition made his green eyes almost translucent looking. Not Candice, then, but still someone who needed me.

  Trying to look friendly, I smiled. “You look like you could use someone to talk to.”

  His eyes traveled across my body, halting at my cleavage. I didn’t take it personally. The guy was barely out of his teens, and he had to deal with raging varúlfur emotions on top of that.

  “Do I?” he asked, a note of humor in a voice that was thick from crying.

  “Mind if I sit?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Be my guest.”

  Giving him as much space as possible, I sat down on the far end of the wooden bench. I decided to go with the direct approach. “You’ve been bitten.”

  He sat up straight and pushed his hoodie back. Spiky black hair tipped in bright red held my gaze for a moment until I noticed the jagged pink scar on his neck. Whoever had bit him had been almost cruel, like it was an act of anger and not a decision to make a new varúlfur.

  “How did you know?” he asked as he leaned away from me a bit.

  Best to take it slow considering his darting eyes and shaking limbs. “Because it happened to me too.”

  Brows pulling tightly together, his eyes filled with moisture. “You seem nice. I didn’t want to do this.”

  He shook his head then buried it in his hands. Horrible deep sobs tore from him, turning into thick, messy crying. I put an arm around his shoulders.

  “It isn’t as bad as you might think. There are people who will help you through the transition. Everything will be okay,” I told him.

  The sobs became louder, as if my words had made him feel worse. Something settled over my mouth, a cloth of some kind. For a second I smelled an odd mixture of sweet and fruity, then the fruity part of that scent began to burn. The young man beside me scurried to his feet and moved away. If it wasn’t him, then who held a cloth to my mouth? I tried to pull away and found myself against something solid, a hand pressing the cloth tighter over my mouth and nose. Attached to that hand was the muscled arm of a man spattered with dark hairs. The harder I fought, the more I breathed in the toxic, burning scents of the wet cloth. My muscles responded slowly to my commands to fight, my strength ebbing away with each breath. My claws extended but a second after they sank into the arm of the person holding me, my vision went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sonya

  Wrists bound behind me and legs trussed up to them like I was going to be cooked over a fire, I woke in the back of an SUV. Nothing covered my mouth but I held my tongue anyway. It wasn’t easy with all the curse words streaming through my head. Tucked into that small spot behind the seats intended for cargo, I couldn’t see much. Forward motion and
road noise told me we were on the move, seriously breaking the speed limit from the sound of the engine. The darkly tinted windows didn’t allow me to see out at this angle. The scents of pine and earth in the carpet didn’t tell me anything either, but the sound of two men breathing and another talking did. I recognized the voice but couldn’t put a name to it.

  “—not a good idea. If she’s this leitar you think she is, won’t she kill us all when she wakes up?” asked one tremoring voice.

  “No, you idiot. The leitar is the one who finds those that have been bitten and are about to lose their shit. They try to help them, save them from themselves. The reaper is the fighter, the killer. Besides, I don’t even think she’s shifted yet. We’ve got nothing to fear from this one,” said another voice, a familiar one.

  “Aren’t you worried about Ayra after her power awakens?”

  A loud smack—like flesh against the back of someone’s head—sounded. “No. She’s too afraid of her brother to give us any shit.”

  None of them smelled like Raul, but that didn’t mean they weren’t from his pack. That I knew I would know him by smell was a bit disturbing, yes, but I was getting used to disturbing. The whole hog-tying thing told me they probably weren’t from his pack. Even Raul wasn’t stupid enough to stoop to a tactic he knew would piss me off beyond repair. Which meant they were from the Arnoddr pack, who really didn’t want me spoiling the whole arranged marriage thing. I wasn’t sure if they much cared whether or not I made it in one piece. Shit.

  Almost on instinct, I started to struggle against my bonds. Several sharp objects bit into the skin of my wrists and hands, sending heat shooting into me as if I had been stung by a hornet from the Jurassic era hopped up on steroids. A gasp escaped me. The talking from the front seat stopped. Holding my breath to try and stay quiet, I struggled harder. Pain exploded into me from dozens of little stings, making me see spots of bright light. It almost felt like razor wire was woven into the damn ropes.

  “Fuck, Dustin, I told you to keep an eye on her. The chloroform already wore off. Put more wolfsbane on the rag this time,” came that second voice I had heard when I woke.

  Recognition struck. It was James, the ring leader of the group that had cornered Ty and me on the side road coming to Missoula. Chloroform, wolfsbane… My mind spun at what that meant. A bearded face appeared over the backseat, along with a huge hand holding a rag that reeked of that fruity sweet concoction that had knocked me out before. I knew him too. He was the man Ty had caught and released when his truck was blown up.

  “No, don’t.” It was a demand instead of a plea, fueled by the rage against my helplessness.

  “Sorry, Leitar, but if I don’t knock you out, I can’t guarantee James will get you there in one piece,” the man whispered.

  I recognized his voice as one of the men from the roadside attack too.

  “Just fucking do it, Dustin. You don’t need to be nice about it,” James said.

  “If she’s the leitar, James, we need to show some respect,” Dustin snapped.

  A short bark of a laugh sounded. “Who cares? Our pack will soon have the Uppskera,” the third man said.

  “Yeah, thanks to her,” Dustin grumbled as he pressed the rag to my mouth.

  I struggled and fought but it only made me breathe harder, pulling the noxious, burning smells into my nose and mouth all the faster. It hurt. Shit, it hurt. Like breathing in broken glass. Seconds later I blacked out to the sound of the three men arguing about whether or not it mattered that I was bitten or born in. I made a mental note not to hurt Dustin as bad as the others when I got loose. Whether or not I would remember that through the haze of the drugs remained to be seen.

  …

  An erratic dripping woke me. Gone were the stuffy smells of the SUV and the three men who had been in it. The pungent smell of old wood and moldy hay worked its way into my abused nostrils. A hard surface beneath my ass and back told me I sat upright. The warm feel of sunlight on my mostly bare legs which stretched out before me suggested it was around early evening. Just like the moon, I was beginning to be able to judge the position of the sun by the feel of its light alone. The ability felt like part instinct, and part something mystical. That meant hours had passed. My hands lay in my lap, ropes still wrapped tight around them. The position—comfortable in comparison to how I’d been trussed up in the back of the SUV—suggested Dustin had been the one to leave me here.

  The man would definitely retain his balls for that. I wouldn’t be so kind with the others. Not hearing or smelling anything else living save for a few mice, I slowly opened my eyes. Light poured through the gaps in the vertical boards that made up the walls of my prison, pooling on the old hay that covered most of the dirt floor. The building was somewhere around twenty by thirty feet with a few structural posts throughout reaching up to beams in the roof. My bound hands were attached to one of those posts by a long rope.

  Getting free would be a cinch. Had Dustin wanted me to? Another look at the ropes dashed that thought away. Thorns wove through the fibers, several of which were dug into my flesh. It hurt bad, and seeing it made it worse. That horrible fruity smell wafted up from the rope, making me suspect it had been soaked in something similar to what they had drugged me with. Wolfsbane, they had called it. So that myth was at least partially true. I twisted my wrists slightly to test it out. Not only did a fiery pain shoot through me in a ring around both wrists, but my strength felt horribly diminished. Even as sturdy as they were, these ropes should have snapped with a simple twist and pull. Whatever they had been soaked in had to be sapping my varúlfur strength.

  I tried to slow my thundering heart and think. If they wanted me dead, I would be. They must want to hold me here until after Raul’s trial. My lack of attendance there might be able to sway the Council into forcing Raul into marrying the woman from this pack. It sort of made sense, I guessed. But what if it had nothing to do with Raul? It could have to do with them thinking I was this leitar. The fact that they may not be planning on killing me didn’t make me feel any less murderous toward them. Raul’s trial was still six days away. If they kept me in here for five days it wouldn’t end well for any of them, including Dustin.

  The rumble of Harley engines reverberated up through the floorboards beneath my feet. They grew louder, then shut off. From a distance came the sound of heavy weeping broken by an occasional plea. Soon the words became clear as the sound drew closer. Along with it I heard the shuffle and drag that indicated someone was being forced in this direction. Three other sets of footsteps accompanied it. Through the gaps in the barn wall I could smell James, Dustin, and the third man who had been with them.

  “Please don’t do this. I don’t want this, I’ve never wanted it,” sobbed a woman.

  While the voice had been distorted from crying, I was sure it wasn’t Candice. Who could it be? What the hell were those bastards up to? Why did they think I was this leitar thing? Wait, leitar… Maybe it was Icelandic for something. They had said the leitar was the one who found those who had been bitten and tried to help them. Like I had found Candice and the guy they had used to lure me out. Find…no, seek. Leitar had to mean seeker. The birthmark on my hip… Chills raced across my skin as if in hot pursuit of one another.

  Were these guys the ones biting people? If so, why? The mark, could it be why Raul had bitten me? I leaped to my feet, putting my back against the post I was bound to. The muscles in my legs protested, proving I hadn’t been unbound and out of the back of that SUV for long. The post was rough enough that it might wear at the cotton ropes. Cursing myself for not thinking of it sooner, I turned and began to rub the ropes binding my wrists against the wood.

  “Shut up, ylva. This is your duty. The moon is nearly full, the leitar is here, it’s time,” a man’s voice that I recognized from the SUV said.

  “Yeah, and since the moon ain’t up just yet, that means your power ain’t fully awakened, so you can’t stop us,” said another voice, dropping off into cruel laughter
after the last word.

  One of the ropes around my wrist popped and broke. Three more to go. I sawed faster. The footsteps drew closer, the crying louder and more desperate, pleas melting away into incoherent sobs. That horrible, defeated sound made me want to hurt the men even more. Another of the ropes broke, freeing my left wrist. The thorns and blood kept the damn thing glued to me, but I tore free easily enough. A few twists of the rope and my right wrist was free as well. Angry red gouges peppered both wrists, but the moment the thorns left my skin the pain began to fade.

  The footsteps paused right outside the barn. I grabbed the rope and wrapped it around my wrists. Sunlight poured in as a huge door—more the size of one wall really—slid open on rails of some kind. Eyes adjusting, I had to blink several times before I could make out the figures silhouetted by light. Dustin pushed the huge sliding door the rest of the way open while James and the third man, a broad blond, dragged a young girl into the barn. The men all wore black leather jackets with AVW on the top rocker. At odds or not, they belonged to the same umbrella pack that Raul did, and that worried me.

  Thin to the point of being almost waif-like, the woman couldn’t have been a hundred and ten pounds. Long, almost white-blond hair obscured her face, hanging all the way down past her B-cup chest to her tiny waist. In an admirable show of defiance, she yanked away from James, flung her hair back, and bit the third man’s arm. From the Norse tattoo on the back of her neck to her mature blue eyes, she looked fierce, and far older than I had first thought. Small as she was, she was no girl. This was a woman of at least twenty years old. And the long fangs embedded in the man’s arm told me she was a varúlfur as surely as the strong pull of her power.

  Cursing in Icelandic, James backhanded her so hard it sounded like a thunderclap. Head snapping to the side, the woman went flying to the ground, tearing a good sized chunk out of the blond man as she went. Blood flavored the air. Part of me was proud that the girl didn’t make a sound, while the man screamed bloody murder. Growling, he moved toward her, leg rearing back as if to kick her.